Orange County Fair removes anti-Trump ‘birthday’ photo at artist’s request

The Orange County Fair pulled a photograph from its competitive art exhibit this week after Orange County Republicans objected to the image, which depicted a child holding a sign reading “Happy Last Birthday” beside anti-Trump messaging — though fair officials say the removal came at the photographer’s own request, not in response to GOP pressure.

The image, titled “The Young Fight” and submitted by photographer Alexander Nguyen as entry No. 1443, showed a family at a “No Kings” protest in Torrance. A child in the photo held the “Happy Last Birthday” sign next to another bearing a caricature of President Trump, along with a pride flag and additional anti-Trump messaging, according to a California Globe report that first detailed the entry. 

Orange County Republican Party Chairman Will O’Neill sent a letter Monday to Fair Board Chairwoman Barbara Bagneris objecting to the display, which he described as “assassination artwork,” and demanding to know who had approved it. O’Neill’s letter also asserted that the fair had denied the county GOP a booth this year — the first time in more than a decade, he said — under a policy aimed at keeping politics out of the fair. That account of the booth denial, including its stated rationale and the decade-plus history, comes from the OCGOP itself; no independent record of the fair’s decision-making on the matter has surfaced publicly. 

Fair Communications Director Terry Moore initially defended the entry, saying it had been “reviewed by the judging panel and accepted as a representation of a public event.” Ms. Moore later said the photo was being “removed from the competition display” at Mr. Nguyen’s request — a sequence that followed Mr. O’Neill’s letter but that fair officials have not attributed to it. 

The dispute unfolded the same week Mr. Trump visited Southern California, headlining a Republican National Committee fundraiser Tuesday evening at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, roughly 40 miles from the fairgrounds. Federal agents conducting a security assessment first spotted a man, later identified as Jeanine John Taele, 38, of Downey, photographing the property on Friday, four days before Mr. Trump’s visit. Mr. Taele returned to the club Sunday, when Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested him after finding ammunition on him and a loaded pistol in his vehicle.

Mr. Taele was charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with three weapons counts and a separate second-degree robbery charge tied to an unrelated November incident, and pleaded not guilty Tuesday, with bail set at $250,000 in that case. He also faces a federal complaint charging him with possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle, a felony carrying up to 10 years in prison; that charge was filed after the state bail was set, and as of Wednesday he remained held without bail pending his initial federal court appearance. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said authorities were “thankful he was apprehended before the President’s visit.”

The fair, which runs through Aug. 16, is operated by the 32nd District Agricultural Association, a state entity whose board includes Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee Michelle Murphy.